Glendora Councilwoman, City Manager Want Local Solution : Delay of Plato-Inspired Assembly Bill Urged

Two city officials have asked an assemblyman to delay action on his bill aimed at preventing incidents similar to a gas leak from a Glendora metal-plating plant that caused children at an adjacent school in San Dimas to become ill.

City Councilwoman Lois Shade and City Manager James Evans want Assemblyman William H. Lancaster (R-Covina) to put the bill on hold while local officials try to agree on how best to solve the problem.

However, Lancaster aide Bill Nunes said it is doubtful that Lancaster will delay action on the bill. “We can’t sit on it,” Nunes said, citing the deadlines the bill must satisfy to proceed to the governor’s desk.

As recently amended, Lancaster’s bill, AB 3728, would empower air pollution control districts to deny an operating permit to a plant next to a school, hospital or convalescent home if the plant’s emissions would pose a potential health hazard.

100 Children Affected

On Jan. 7, acetic acid vapors escaped from Plato Products Inc. in Glendora and caused 100 children at Arma J. Shull School to suffer headaches and nausea. As a result of the incident, Plato agreed to stop all plating operations by Sept. 1, but officials with the Bonita Unified School District are seeking legislation to prevent another similar occurrence.

Shade said she would like to see a similar bill authored by Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D--Los Angeles) put on hold.

Shade stressed that she and Evans are not opposing either bill, but instead want time to see whether a committee, composed of representatives from the cities of San Dimas and Glendora and the Bonita Unified School District, can resolve the issue.

“Let’s see if between the three jurisdictions we can’t work this out locally,” Shade said. “Basically, it would be local government solving a local problem.”

However, Bonita School Board member Sharon Scott, who testified in favor of Lancaster’s bill in Sacramento this week, was livid when she learned of efforts to stall the legislation. Scott noted that Glendora city officials had permitted Plato to move its plant next to the school in 1984 without requiring an environmental impact report.

“Now, we have the very city that allowed this (Plato incident) to happen . . . being in opposition,” Scott said. “This just demonstrates that this legislation is necessary to make cities accountable.”

The Assembly Committee on Natural Resources held hearings on Lancaster’s bill earlier this week, but put off action until May 2 because of numerous last-minute amendments.

“The bill would die on May 6 if it didn’t pass out of this committee,” Nunes said. “It would remove the option of going forward with the bill this year.”

Baffled by Requests

Stan Diorio, an aide in Waters’ Sacramento office, said he had not been contacted by Glendora officials. However, he said he had heard of the officials’ request and was baffled.

“This is unbelievable--are these people crazy?” Diorio said. “This is a statewide bill. This bill isn’t focused on their one little incident. That’s one example of the problem, but it’s one of many. I don’t think they understand the scope of the problem.”

Waters’ bill, AB 3410, would place more stringent pollution controls on factories located next to schools and would restrict districts from building schools near factories. That bill was prompted by a 1986 incident in which 28 children at Tweedy Elementary School in Southgate were hospitalized after being exposed to chlorine gas from a nearby plant.

As amended, Lancaster’s bill would apply not only to proposed factories, but to existing plants that plan to expand their operations. Other amendments define adjacent to include factories located across a street or alley from a school and request the South Coast Air Quality Management District to define which industrial pollutants could pose a potential health hazard.